A Series of Events
by blackpond
Summary: A story about young Barma and young Sheryl and the various events that lead to them being together, then separated and then together again.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts nor do I have any rights to it.

Author Note: I've changed the age of Barma when he made his contract in order to fit the purposes of the story. I think the guide says that he is physically in his 40's but I think he could pass as being younger. Also this story will probably make no sense as the chapters come out but hopefully it will still be something worth reading.

Thanks for reading.

They'd known each other for a long time, since they were children in fact. And there'd always been a comfort there, something that deep down inside said, _yes, this is right. This cannot possibly be wrong_.

They both felt it.

Together they made sense, apart it was like they were missing a vital organ.

It was easier when they were younger though.

When they were younger they were more free, free from cares, free from responsibilities, for a short while they were free from the roles that were to contort them as they got older. At this time they were free of the tight bounds and constricts of society that were to confine them in the future. For now they could afford and luxuriate in the honesty that they took for granted. And they'd _always_ been honest with each other, even though, in all honesty, they weren't all that honest with others. But between them was an unspoken agreement on the rules of engagement in their relationship. Though they might plot and scheme in their daily lives, might lie and feign and pretend, they wouldn't pretend with each other.

In their eyes they were the only equals, the rest of their world was a game or a play with characters to be used and manipulated as they saw fit. It was just a world of pawns and they were the only ones with real power. They were the only one that the other would never think of using or disposing with. That was their agreement. And they were happy.

But as they got older things started closing in on them. They got more powerful. More was expected of them. People started _wanting_ things from them. The game became more potent with greater consequences, but in all honesty they both _loved_ the game more than anything, except for each other.

Their relationship had started with Sheryl sitting on a blanket in the shade of a large weeping willow in the garden. She had looked up at Rufus Barma, who had been 6 months older than her at the time, and had commented that his hair was a weird color.

That was how the love affair had started.

Looking down at Sheryl on the ground, who was just a small very petite little girl, who had just very firmly insulted him and made him feel dressed down and insignificant in her presence, he couldn't help but feel that he rather liked it coming from that small rather tenacious little bundle.

In fact he didn't mind it at all.

No one had ever made him feel that way before, or treated him that way or spoke to him that way. No one dared. But she dared.

He remained cold and said that it's not like he had chosen his hair color.

She informed him that he should have a little more pride in it and went on to say that he was very tall.

"Like a giant." She added in her cold teasing, slightly haughty voice that hinted at a playfulness that lurked beneath.

"Well my heights, my height…" He sniffed out, looking down his nose at her, his long thin lips downturned in a permanent frown and his eyes cold and dull looking.

He had that look to him, a look that was extremely dispassionate, like everything was a given.

All his life he had been a proud Barma. All his life he had been waited on hand and foot, told how important he was, told that he had rights. When people addressed him it was with respect.

But she didn't seem to note that at all. She did with him as she pleased.

Her passive, dazzling eyes regarding him, she stood up in one spry movement. She had to crane her head up just to look at him.

"I wasn't criticizing your height. In fact I rather like it." She stared at him for a minute and he was unsure of what he was supposed to do.

She sighed.

"Ahem, I want to go over there, Ru." She started walking and he followed by her side.

Then he blinked and looked over at her,

"I never gave thee permission to call me Ru." He said.

"Do I need permission?" She asked, her small pouty lips tight.

Rufus stared ahead of him.

"No, I suppose not."

He soon learned many things about her, one of which being her love of sitting back and watching people and events manifest around her.

Slowly he had grown accustomed to entertaining her by arranging things for her and then the two of them both sitting back and watching events play out. Many an afternoon had been spent in this way, watching nannies, tutors, servants and parents spin their wheels. It was amusing and it was fun but it was nothing compared to listening to her tinkling laugh and watching that beautiful smile spread across her lovely features finally reaching those gorgeous brilliantly cunning eyes of hers.

She on the other hand appreciated his oddness and eccentricities, his sense of experience and his manipulative prowess. She liked how every now and then he could be quite sudden and impulsive and take her by surprise, like a suddenly energetic puppy or a baby who'd recovered from a cold.

She liked his boldness and the slightly haughty entitled manner that he had about himself. His hunger and fierce pursuit and appetite for knowledge also intrigued her. She liked his responses and the way that he reacted to her. She also liked the fact that unlike most of the boys that she met he was her equal and match not just mentally but in title as well.

She was a Duchess to be by birth. He was a Duke to be by birth. He suited her.

She liked the way that he treated her differently than he treated other people. He was the kind of guy who would cut down anyone just for her and she liked that about him. Underneath that cool detached bored mask that he wore with such skill there was a hidden loyalty and a passion in him. He wasn't as cold, detached and bored as he seemed. In fact he was quite far from it and every now and then, for her, he'd let her see it.

She'd never forget the time when they were 11 when he'd (somehow) persuaded a group of servants to hide all the silverware (and napkins) at a party they weren't allowed to attend at her family's summer house. She had been upset about not being allowed to attend when he'd come into the sitting room, grabbed her hand and took her all the way up a hill overlooking the grounds where the party was being held.

He seemed unspeakably happy and it pleased her to see him this way. There were a lot of things about him that pleased her she was finding.

Together they sat on a blanket with napkins and silverware eating chicken salad croissants with fruit and strawberry cakes watching the attendees eat with their hands and use their handkerchiefs as napkins. It was very amusing. They'd stayed up there till dusk and the first shy stars before coming back down from their spot.

They spent the rest of the evening in the drawing room, playing chess.

That was another thing.

Rufus was the first person to ever hold their own with her when playing chess against her. It was actually a challenge to defeat the other and they both kept a pretty even amount of wins and losses against each other. They were both very, very good and neither one of them liked to lose.

Sheryl liked this about them.

Later on Sheryl learned that Rufus had black mailed those servants into hiding the silverware and napkins. She loved him all the more for it.

They both got older and the urge for more interesting games inevitably immerged.

"Ru," Sheryl smiled, looking down from her balcony at the dark shadowy figure of a 16 year old Rufus Barma trying to get a firm hold on a trellis and he couldn't have looked more awkward doing it either.

She was also 16; it was late, much too late for her parents to be up, or for servants to be up prowling around. It was also far too late for her to be up and well, there never really was an _appropriate_ time for a boy to be crawling up a trellis to get to her balcony but it was happening never the less and Sheryl was enjoying it to the fullest.

She had on a long white nightgown complete with lace and ribbon. Her hair was down and flowing over her shoulders, cascading down her back.

It was the middle of April and though it had been hot that day it was considerably colder now but there was a promise in the air, a promise of much, much warmer nights to come.

A candle set on the balustrade where she had laid it so she could lean over the barrier to get a better look at her Ru. He was struggling, ripping off his coat and throwing it to the ground before rolling up his sleeves and taking a running jump at the thing.

She was barefoot, leaning against the balustrade, smiling.

"Oooh to see the prideful duke-to-be shimmying up a flower trellis." She smirked. "I must admit, it is ever so amusing." She smirked and arched an eye brow at him as he stopped climbing in order to look up at her.

She wriggled her eyebrow and his usual frown deepened.

He returned with new determination to his work.

She watched him, humming to herself, a smile on her lips. She enjoyed watching his deep red auburn hair, which was pulled back with a tie, swing from his efforts.

She eventually spread her arms flat on the stone to either side of her, first propping her chin on the balustrade before rolling so that her cheek was flat on the stone of it, the cold of the stone stinging her face slightly.

She sighed.

"Really Ru, if I knew you'd be this slow I think I would've come down to you." She thought for a moment as she heard the rustling of vines, mingled with the rustling of his clothes.

She smiled.

"Or I could have taken care of my desire all by myself…" She trailed off, listening.

The rustling of both vine and clothing picked up.

It was a beautiful sound and despite Sheryl's apparent confidence her knees did feel weak and she was nervous and she blushed at the thought of Rufus knowing her _level_ of excitement upon entering her, because he would know for certain, she was sure. And she wondered, absently, what he would think of her because unlike other people, his opinion did actually matter to her. She wondered if he was having similar thoughts as she felt the rustling get closer and finally the slap of two hands clasping the banister.

She raised her head up and gracefully came up to a standing position.

He carefully brought his feet up over the balustrade and then carefully stood up so that he was right square in front of her. They stood there staring at each other for a moment, eyeing each other with a new game in mind now.

"Sheryl." Barma said politely with a single nod of his head.

"Ru." Sheryl responded, coolly.

They stood there for a moment, just like that, eyeing each other before they both broke out into smirks which quickly turned into smiles.

They both took the steps necessary to close the distance between them and they were soon slammed up against each other. Sheryl gasped feeling something that she wanted to learn more about brush against her slightly. She was shocked and it sent an ache all through her spine to her head and back up again. It went through her.

He was hard and felt, rather packed in there. She felt herself blush a little at the thought that she was making him that way and at the thought that his pants had to be straining quite a bit. She was going to make a remark to that effect but in a surprisingly bold move, Rufus reached under her chin and tilted her head so that he had better access to her mouth. His other arm wrapped around her waist and tugged so she was even closer to him, even more pressed into him.

Normally she instigated the kisses so this was a change but she was fine with it for now. Her arms went up and around his neck pulling him down closer to her, so that he had to stoop slightly. He was only slightly taller than her now, so the height difference was nothing like what it had been when they were younger.

For a while they just kissed, a fight for dominance that seemed to go on forever as they matched each other perfectly. Eventually Sheryl ran her hands through his hair tugging right at the scalp as she pushed her hips toward him ever so slightly. He almost moaned but stopped, seemingly gaining some control over himself and she wanted to sigh right out loud.

She really wanted to make him moan before she did. She did not want Ru to have the upper hand in this, but she was concerned that if she wasn't careful, he just might get it.

She herself had been reading romance novels since she was five, they were the first thing that she'd read but they only went so far. She wasn't exactly sure how experienced he was with this sort of thing and there was no real way for her to tell outwardly (unlike her. She would of course bleed and besides he already knew. She'd told him. He however hadn't offered up that information about himself to her, and she hadn't asked of course, feeling that unless he brought it up it would be un-lady like to bring it up herself). So she didn't know.

He could be bad and awkward at it like he had been with all of his other attempts to "court" her, for lack of a better word, a phenomena that had started with a degree of seriousness and determination when he'd turned 13 and according to him "became a man". She couldn't help but hope that he was utterly and completely inexperienced at this and that she would somehow have the upper hand.

But there lurked the fear that perhaps Ru was a secret seducer who had perhaps, in a very real sense, became a man when he was 13 and so for the past 3 years had been having wild, passionate, dirty animal sex with various women leading him up to this point, now, with her and therefor he would know some secret way to make her lose all control and do whatever he wanted..

She tried to imagine him, three years of roving, mad, wild whore house sex and several mistresses kept in various country houses, possibly with illegitimate children. It was hard to imagine. She didn't think he was capable of it. In fact despite his manipulative cunning nature she really didn't think that he would do something like that to her. She wasn't entirely sure but she thought that perhaps to her, out of all others, he would be loyal. She wasn't entirely sure but she also thought that maybe he might just love her…_really_ love her. And she thought that maybe, just maybe, she might _really_ love him too and if it were true what a wonderful thing.

However, though she doubted he was a blow-your-mind-a-way secret seducer/playboy (thinking about that now she didn't know how she could've even thought that, after all he really was awkward around her) but she did think that perhaps he was the kind of boy to go looking up things in books and therefor, in a text book kind of way, he could be quite skilled.

Amidst all of her thinking, Rufus pulled back from the kiss. They both seemed to share a breath for a moment before Barma swallowed, his fingers lightly brushing away the hair that was in her face.

"Sheryl, art thou sure?" He swallowed again, almost as if he was in pain. "Art thou sure thou want to do this? I mean there will be repercussions. I'll be ruining thee for thou husband. We'll probably get in trouble and I won't be able to help thee."

Sheryl smiled up at him.

"I'm positive." She stood on tip toe slightly so that she could whisper seductively in his ear. "Besides, _I want you_, Ru. I do not care about the repercussions." She came down from her height, the balls of her feet making a slight pad sound as they hit the stone.

She watched his face as she went about loosening his cravat.

"I wouldn't want anyone else to ruin me, Ru."

The tie was succumbing to her nimble little fingers and he looked practically paralyzed. She had learned some things from her romance novels though.

"I want _you_ to ruin me, Ru." She smiled sweetly at him looking oh-so innocent.

She could've added 'after all if it's _you_ it will be my_ husband_ ruining me, if that's what you want'. She could've also added 'that's what I want' but she didn't mostly because she felt it'd ruin the mood and mostly because Ru's eyes flickered in the most brilliant way and before she knew it he had lifter her up and pressed her against the stone of the house. She thought that it was very smooth of him.

She was now very aware that her legs had automatically opened and were now pressed to Ru's sides. They were kissing frantically when Rufus's pants bulge once again pressed up against her, this time some place _very_ sensitive and they both moaned into the kiss at the same time before breaking away from it.

Sheryl supposed that she could settle for a tie.

Rufus's grip on her tightened and then he realized something. He smiled a little.

It was a look that suited him she thought mischievously, perhaps for the first time Ru was looking a little seductive.

"Why Duchess-to-be Rainsworth, I don't believe thee hast any undergarments on." He said continuing to feel around for them.

"No, Ru. I don't." she said seductively. "I thought they'd just get in the way."

He just nodded and then coughed.

"We should go inside." He said.

Sheryl nodded, and waited for him to move. But he didn't move.

Then she smiled with understanding.

"It's okay, Ru." She whispered in his ear. "Set me down. I know exactly what to do."

He blushed a rather bright shade of red that she might have expected from one of his exuberant cravats more than the color of his flesh. It was a shade of red that competed with his hair which Sheryl found quite impressive. She decided not to tease him about it though. It would only make him more embarrassed and he appeared to be suffering enough as it was.

He complied with her demand and sat her down and she made him take a pained step back as she began working away at the front of his trousers. She left the top button done up so that the trousers would stay up while she quickly released Rufus's painfully twisted sex. She started a little at the organs warmth and size though.

Rufus breathed out a sigh of relief and pleasure as she brought it out, while she, despite herself, just looked at it.

She'd never seen the male sexual organ before and therefor was quite fascinated by it. She stroked it lightly with her finger tips marveling at the beautiful dark auburn hair that was there. It was longer than she'd expected and curly and surprisingly soft. It was more dark and more brown than the hair on his head yet it still retained that beautiful red gleam to it.

She had continued to stroke and finger him absently and thoughtlessly as she was so fascinated by his sex that she'd lost herself in the contemplation of him and his organ. Sure she'd read descriptions of the male sexual organ in her novels but they weren't very graphic. She'd heard ladies sometimes comment behind their fans about the endowments of this or that man. Once she'd even gotten an anatomy book out of the family library and ran upstairs to her room to look at it, but still it was nothing compared to actually seeing it. In truth she had found both description and the drawing out of the anatomy book to be rather…vulgar and almost a little disgusting. But she didn't find Ru's that way at all. She really liked looking at it. It held a peculiar kind of beauty to it. It was strange and exotic looking and she found herself thinking of it in terms of a possession and all of the new things she was going to try out with it. She blushed at the thought. It was very long she mused.

She was eventually pulled out of her reverie though by Rufus's barely contained gasps and she looked up to see that his mouth was very much open and his eyes were clouded over by an ill-concealed lust. She withdrew her hand and smiled politely at him.

"Well, we cannot have you do that yet." She said. "So I better stop." She mumbled.

She walked away from him and disappeared for a moment out of his sight.

She picked up the candle from the balustrade and then walked back to Rufus. She opened the doors to her bedroom and then walked over to the slightly dumbstruck Rufus. She stuck a finger in his waistband and gently pulled. He obediently followed.

She led him to the middle of her room, right before her bed and dressing table.

The room was large and light. It had high ceilings and was white. The inlaid hardwood floors had a flower design, all of it in varying shades of light gold colored wood. On the wall with the door to the balcony there were huge windows that went from the floor to the ceiling but were covered and obscured by delicate cream ruched curtains. There was crown molding and though the room was simply furnished and very neat the furniture in the room was decadent and richly embellished.

The room struck Rufus as very Sheryl, beautiful and simplistic. There was no need to overdo it.

She walked over to a long narrow table and sat the candle stick holder down. Rufus walked over slowly and quietly, he now felt a little more in control of himself, and swept Sheryl up in his arms carrying her bridal style to her bed.

She had gasped. She hadn't been expecting it which was what made the look on her face even more charming. She rarely looked surprised and she possessed the ability to look upon almost any situation with a serene look across her face and a smile. But now she looked slightly shocked and caught off guard and there was a twinkle in Sheryl's eyes that made Rufus's heart feel like singing out.

He carried her over to the bed and laid her out on the lavender coverlet which was littered with what appeared to be hundreds of little green silk embroidered flowers.

He kissed her, really kissed her in a way that he never felt like he was able to kiss her before. He was always afraid of others walking in on them or Sheryl thinking him too pushy or awful or embarrassing but in this environment with her it all seemed to go away. He wasn't worried or concerned. It all seemed simplified and he buried his tongue in her mouth as she sucked at his. The fight for dominance that had always characterized their kisses seemed to melt away, like a public face falling off. Now it was just them. There kisses were deep and passionate and every time that they took a strangled breath it was like they breathed as one.

Sheryl smelled like strawberries and tea and the garden and Rufus smelled like shampoo and soap and water, just a general sort of cleanliness mingled with books and library smell and ink.

Rufus started to edge up Sheryl's nightgown and she made no move to stop him as he ran his hands up her thighs pushing the gown up with it.

Sheryl's fingers gripped at his hair eventually finding the ribbon which had been trying to keep his hair orderly. She undid it and tossed it to the side. Her legs enveloped him as they spread and stroked his sides with their movement. She gripped at his back and then being reminded of his shirt her hands quickly busied themselves with undoing buttons.

He had managed to get her nightgown to her hips, her bottom half now completely exposed. He stopped and took off his shirt, balling it and throwing it somewhere on the floor.

She came up to him, kneeling on the bed as she pulled him into a kiss. Eventually she had lowered herself so that her bottom was resting on the balls of her feet.

Rufus could see this for a moment and the image made him stop and stare. He wondered how he was going to hold out.

He'd read books. He knew that was disappointing. He figured that if the worst did indeed happen there were other ways of pleasing a woman but still he didn't want to have to result to that because he'd failed to…hold in his passion so to speak.

It was his first time with a woman. He was a virgin and he loved Sheryl very much. He wanted her to enjoy herself. He did not want to disappoint her.

He continued to kiss Sheryl and lift up her gown.

Then she broke away from his kiss and looked at him with a determination, her small pouty lips smarting, her arms raised over her head expectantly.

Rufus at once understood and continued to push the gown up then over her head, pulling the sleeves from her arms. He tried not to look, waiting till he'd tossed the gown aside before taking in Sheryl, legs folded underneath her, naked before him. Her hands rested on her lap in a position that he'd seen a thousand times since they were kids, and now, at an endless amount of parties and other social gatherings he had seen her with her hands placed in her lap in exactly this way.

Except now she was naked.

He sighed.

_So this is what hath been lurking beneath all this time?_ He thought to himself.

If he'd known this earlier he was pretty sure Sheryl wouldn't have been the first to make the move.

Sheryl smiled and bit her lip, looking down and looking both smug and demure in the same instant. It was very appealing. She looked up again, smiling.

"What's the matter, Ru? I never thought I'd see the prideful duke to be Barma speechless. This is quite a grave state you're in, sir."

"I concur." He replied.

She smiled and nodded and laid long ways on the bed, her head resting on folded arms as she lay there languidly, her ass a seductive curve against the backdrop of her creamy night drenched room.

He wasn't sure what to do with himself.

"Ru," She smiled, her lips just barely touching the silky skin of her arm. "I think you should finish undressing."

Rufus had forgotten that he still had his trousers on.

"Um," He looked down as if it were a revelation. "Yes."

He did away with the trousers as Sheryl watched him. She'd known for a long time that he was attractive. She had long fantasized about the many different attributes that he possessed and indeed had fantasized about this very moment, but still lying there on her bed watching Rufus pull off the last of his clothing, slip his shoes off, then his socks, she realized that she had not even begun to grasp just how beautiful her Ru truly was.

His face was an odd hypnotizing sort of serene with his slanted dark eyes and his elegant nose and cheekbone structure. He also possessed kissable lips and a seductive throat. It was hard to explain. He looked wise and sophisticated yet young and boyish. His body was elegant and elongated. He carried with him a certain sophistication that was obvious and yet she still felt that he was accessible to her. The way that his body was it was obvious that he would age nicely. He would never be ugly or deterred. He would always be elegant and sophisticated, sharp and fierce. His body was like a fine orchid but his mind was like a fierce, persistent, cunning little bird. She could've laughed at the thought of this but she thought that it might offend him given his current state of nakedness, so she refrained and she watched him and admired him and basked in his loveliness and this sense of warmth that settled over her even though she knew that it was quite chilly and therefor she should've been quite chilly but she wasn't.

She was warm and happy and thinking about what a lucky girl she was to have lived her life and to be in this bed on this night, safe and sound and thinking about all the wonderful things that he was going to do to her and she was wonderfully content at all of these thoughts. She thought that she was lucky to have known Ru, lucky to still know him now. She would be impossibly lucky if she got to continue to share her life with him. Things were so wonderful and perfect in this moment. They were young and had so much in front of them even putting aside their fresh young bodies.

Things were perfect, she thought. She loved Ru, she thought. Ru really was just lovely, she thought.

She had never felt this happy before. She felt her happiness as something blinding that could cut through things. She felt that it would cut through her if she were not careful. But it was this very happiness and this adoration that she felt for Rufus that made her want to grab his ass (and what a firm, tight little ass it was) as he was finally stripped of all clothing and had turned around to face her, his sex fully visible to her eyes as she had the strangest little impulse.

And unlike the other she obeyed it.

On the tip of Rufus's penis there was the smallest droplet of shining fluid. Sheryl immediately obeyed the impulse that told her to lean over and lick it off.

Rufus shuddered as her tongue touched him and his breath hitched.

She loved that she could make him do that. That's when she decided, with a smile on her face, to take all of him in her mouth, her eyes flashing up to look at him appealingly.

His face burned and he trembled and looked away.

She now believed that she would have the upper hand in this particular matter. In her head she smiled, feeling a little smug on this account.

She sucked on him for a minute, caressing his penis with her tongue, making him shiver with barely suppressed pleasure.

He glared down at her and once again in her head she smiled at him. He knew that he was losing to her, softening in her hands (or rather mouth) and she had this odd suspicion that he rather liked it.

She pulled off of him leaving his tip with a parting kiss. She laid her head back down on her arms and smiled up lovingly at him, very pleased with herself as one of her legs pointed and swung up.

Rufus thought that she was quite the sight to take in, laying as she was, stark naked on the bed and yet almost looking modest and innocent on the bed as only her back and buttocks were fully exposed and bare before his eyes. That was very like Sheryl, Rufus thought. For someone who was quite the contrary she could look extremely modest and innocent.

_Which she most diffidently is not_, he thought as she sighed, tilting her lovely little head to the side with a smile still on her lips.

He bent down and kissed her shoulder and she rose up slightly just enough to barely expose one of her nipples. She looked at him completely without fear or doubts but he could see the flush on her cheeks.

She wasn't as calm and cool as she pretended to be. She couldn't fool him. He knew her far too well for that. Why did she still think after all these years that she could play such games with him, he who knew her the best?

He smiled at her and he made room for himself on her bed and then he went to the head of the bed where her feet and the backs of her legs lounged gracefully. He traced one finger on her thigh and he couldn't keep himself from delighting in the goose-bumps that were raised there. He felt a little more confident.

In truth he was nervous and not entirely sure of himself but in this, seeing this small reaction from her, he felt better.

He rose up and grabbed her hips, turning her over gently. She just stared at him pleasantly. Her knees were still together so he gently touched them, as if to part them, but that wasn't necessary. She parted her own knees, spreading her legs invitingly.

The image made Rufus freeze up.

It was inviting, so torturously inviting and he felt his need within him grow as strong as a punch. But he was paralyzed.

She smiled easily and widened her legs even more, hands resting on her knees and aiding her in this effort. For some reason it just reminded Rufus of how innocent she truly was, a virgin (but then again, so was he). No one had ever had her before and for some reason being the first was very appealing to him.

_There will be others_, he thought mournfully. _She's beautiful; of course she will take on other lovers. Why wouldn't she?_

And the thought filled him with a quiet rage and jealousy that there might be other men who would touch her, want her, have her.

If she were to marry he wasn't sure what he might do.

_I want to be the first and the last_, he thought. _The only. _I_ want to marry her_, he thought.

And at the time nothing seemed more natural. Though there was some small doubt in him at the time, it just seemed like a given. Her eyes were staring right at his.

_I wonder if her legs hath ever been stretched out in this manner before_, he thought idly, _this wide._

He doubted it.

"Whatever is the matter, Ru?" She asked like normal, like all of this was so every day it was mundane, so very normal.

She smiled and one of her hands reached up to fondle her own breast. She was squeezing it, rubbing her thumb over the nipple.

"Don't you want me?" she asked innocently and yet with perfect grace and a dignity about her.

Rufus's voice was caught in his throat and all he could do was watch in amazement. A part of him just wanted to see what she would do next and a part of him wanted to do _something_ but he was afraid that if he made any movement now he would come on the spot and end up embarrassing himself badly in front of Sheryl.

She however seemed oblivious, or rather pleased with his torment.

"Or is that you want me to want you instead?" Her eyebrow arched suggestively.

Who would have thought someone so prim and proper could be so slutty, he thought, downright whorish. And yet it didn't surprise him.

Sheryl was just that perfect. She was beautiful, smart, witty, powerful and capable. He had no doubt that when the time came she would be more than capable of heading up the Rainsworth Dukedom on her own and do a splendid job at that. She was interesting, amusing and an excellent conversationalist. On any given day Rufus would much rather sit down and have a conversation with her than any man around. She gave excellent advice. She was always poised and calm and graceful. She was perfectly capable of throwing a good party and keeping her guests amused and laughing. She also knew all the correct protocol for any given situation. She could be cunning and very wise, beyond her years really, several steps ahead of everyone else around her and Rufus liked that. In fact sometimes he wondered if she wasn't just his match but also better than him. She was strong and he admired that about her. And her fan really scared him.

Not once had she ever made fun of the way that he talked (a result of reading older texts and being around mostly older people whose speech patterns were different from current times).

She kept her feelings wrapped up and yet she also held the ability to let them show (though she hardly needed to. Rufus knew her feelings even when she was trying to hide them from everyone.)

She was really beautiful too. Not once had he ever seen her when she did not look beautiful. She was always beautiful. She had an inner strength about her that wouldn't quit. She was well-mannered and polite but knew when she needed to ditch these qualities within herself. Her personality shone brighter than everyone else's. She was the perfect lady. He loved her. He was certain.

She was his equal, a perfect match, someone who he felt he could stand with and her with him. Time spent with Sheryl was never time spent wasted.

There were others and then there was them. Others simply didn't matter as they did. In Rufus's head that was the end of it.

And yet with all these qualities she could be like this, spread out naked before him, fondling her own breasts and asking questions like "or is it that you want me to want you" and she was the one to suggest this little affair.

She really was fearless, absolutely fearless and Rufus knew that fearlessness was also part of his attraction to her. He loved that quality about her.

She was looking at him, an anxious smile on her face.

"Ru, it's very impolite to keep a Lady waiting you know?" She was squeezing her breast idly and with one leg she stretched out and began stroking his thigh with her toes, toes which were surprisingly soft and dainty (after all he'd only ever seen uncovered male feet).

She was biting her lower lip and had sighed prettily, her eyes resting on the spot where her toes and his thigh touched.

Slowly Rufus swallowed and gathered up some courage about himself.

He crawled over to where she laid.

"Oh, whatever is Ru going to do n-?"

And he kissed her and then he pulled back and marveled at the blush that he'd put on her cheeks.

And then he smiled at her and it was an artless, very seductive smile that Sheryl had seen on his face before, whenever he thought that he might win or thought that he was being particularly clever. It was triumphant and subtle and knowing though she wasn't exactly sure about what.

It was a smile to give to an enemy who was about to lose and it was the smile of him arranging things for her to watch and amuse her with. It was a smile given to her when they were across the room talking to members of their respective sex.

It was a smile of knowledge. It was a smile of victory, a smile of courage and conviction, a smile which could sometimes look snaky and smarmy. She'd seen it on him when they were young and had just met. She'd seen it on him as they'd gotten older and it had only gotten more potent and confident as they'd gotten older. That smile thrilled her and warmed her and made her anxious. That smile was an odd mix, _kind of like Ru_, she thought.

That smile widened and he pulled his body back and began kissing her breasts and sucking on them as he looked up at her.

She was smiling smartly; her small lips pressed together as she kept back her moans and tried to conceal her pleasure. But Rufus could tell that she was enjoying herself.

He gnawed gently at one breast and watched her expression. She watched him eagerly wondering what he was going to do next.

He tore himself away from her breast and continued down her body, pressing little kisses along the way, underneath her breast, on her petite little ribcage, her stomach, the sides of her hips and then where her legs met the rest of her.

She watched him the entire time and he watched her as well. But some of her composure was slipping every time he slipped further down. Now he reached his arms up under her and held onto where her ribcage was, leaving her hips free to do as they pleased.

"Ah, um, Ru, what are you-" And she moaned the most delicious moan he'd ever heard and she flinched and squirmed a moment before bucking involuntarily into his face.

He could smell her and feel her and taste her as he slipped his tongue into her, tasting and feeling her out, after all he'd never done this before. He didn't think that any smell or taste existed lovelier than this and his mouth felt her abundant juices. For some reason he didn't think she'd be this wet yet.

_Perhaps I am better than I thought_, he pondered to himself.

Then he decided to try finding that spot that he'd read about which was apparently very important.

He began sucking her clitoris and he knew that his reading had paid off when Sheryl's inquiries into what exactly he was doing down there grew more nonsensical and gave way to an incoherent sob of pleasure that eventually resulted in…

"Ru!" Her hands grasped his hair forcing him to stay there and he didn't mind.

He liked the way that she smelled and as she began to convulse and squirm, her body coiling and tensing, her back arching, just to finally release. He sucked her clitoris a few more times before moving down to suck the juices out from her and there were plenty, much more than before. She had lifted her upper half and curled slightly her breasts brushing her knees as her mouth hung open in a silent sob. She leaned back and hit the pillow, her orgasm exhausted and he sucked her juices up greedily before pulling away, her smell all around him like a perfume.

Sheryl had withdrawn her fingers from his hair and now had them grinding and curling into her cheek, her beautiful breasts were heaving from her breath and she looked intensely pleasured and kind of disturbed.

Rufus just stared at her proudly, her body nothing but a beautiful blend of light pink and white. He looked at her little nipples, pert and standing. They were the most beautiful shade of baby pink he'd ever seen and stood out that much more due to how pale her skin was.

Rufus himself looked quite roguish though, his long hair mussed, some of it hanging in his eyes. He'd licked his lips to remove her come from them, not wanting to waste a drop of it. But for his own saliva wet lips he wiped it away with the side of his thumb.

"What doth concern you, Lady Rainsworth?" He asked smugly.

"I came." Sheryl blushed profusely.

"Aye." Rufus said.

"Well, I didn't mean to come." She said haughtily.

"Well I wanted thee to come first."

"I didn't _want_ to come first. I wanted _you _to come first." She hissed, looking away shamefully.

"I know." Rufus said simply, though by this point his erection positively _ached_ for satisfaction. "But I wanted thee to come first. I read it makes the penetration more bearable for the lady involved."

Sheryl sneered and crossed her arms over her bare breasts.

"I knew that you would read up on this sort of thing. That's _so_ like you." She said angrily.

He smiled down at her.

"And thou art going to tell me thee didst not either?"

She smiled up at him.

"I wouldn't say that." She said smiling thinly.

She yawned a little and then stretched languidly, her arms reaching up over her head and showing off the cute little tuft of hair there. Her head leaned into her other arm but one eye remained free and looking at him, a coy smile on her lips.

Rufus grunted a little bit.

"Oh, is that…so!" He said, reaching up underneath her legs, grabbing her hips and pulling her to him.

She gasped and he reached underneath her to put his hands beneath her bottom in order to support her as he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around him, smiling.

"Yes, it is." She said properly.

"Then thou shalt show me." He said.

She blushed and nodded.

Then she used her weight to push him down onto his back. He went down without much resistance and she sat on his stomach having been especially careful not to unintentionally hurt his crotch. She felt herself pushed against his stomach and it reminded herself of their nakedness. She could feel his hot body straight through the core of her and when she looked down at him she thought that perhaps he'd realized this too. She began to feel her desire stirring in her again as this thought occurred to her. She smiled softly and then with a lot of care she turned, straddling his abdomen with her back turned to him. Then she scooted down and bent her head. She put his cock into her mouth and began sucking it, stroking it with her tongue and then pulling it out when she feared he was too close to release.

As she first enveloped him in her mouth he hesitated. But then he slowly relaxed and gave in.

As she did all of this he moaned in pleasure and sighed and groaned when she withdrew herself from him. She ignored this. As she waited she stroked his thighs, examined his generous endowment and occasionally she breathed across him. Once she'd nudged his legs apart so that she could examine his nether regions. He had groaned a little but complied. She'd leaned and bent so that she could see around his cock. She probed and ghosted over his entrance but she didn't actually insert herself into him. She admired his buttocks from this angle, and what a sweet little buttocks it was. She smiled to herself. Her Ru had always had a nice ass. She had remembered thinking so even when she was young and they had just met.

Eventually, when she'd thought there'd been a long enough break she took him into her mouth again, once again taking him to a point where she thought he was just about to come and then stopping. She pulled away admiring his endurance and self-control.

Then she turned around.

Rufus sat up and kissed her passionately and Sheryl was once again sitting in his lap. He had reached down and was now fondling her breasts, first hesitantly and then with more confidence, rubbing circles on her nipples. She moaned into the kiss. Then she rubbed her thigh against his shaft and he came away from the kiss with a groan.

And she'd always thought he had a lovely neck. She took advantage of this moment to lift his chin with two fingers. She nudged him back slightly. He used his hands to keep himself leaned back but not lying down, his chin up. She kissed his neck, sucked on his Adam's apple and then kissed up his neck to suck on his chin, her hands splayed out on his chest. He finally lowered his chin as she broke away from it and directed her mouth into his. They kissed for a moment, their heads twisting, their tongues working. He was sitting up now and she was balancing, perched on his lap. He broke away from the kiss and held her face gently, their foreheads touching as he smiled to himself.

"Sheryl." He whispered and he had his doubts about whether or not she heard him.

He pulled his head away and kissed her cheeks and her nose and her eyelids. She grabbed a hold of his wrists and held them together as she leaned into his ear.

"Ru," she said in a low seductive voice that gave him chills. "Now I want _you _to penetrate me."

Something about the words and the way she said it almost sent him over the edge. All he could do was nod and then carefully lift her, turn around and then lay her down underneath him, careful to make sure that her head was resting on the pillow. He pulled back and looked down at her, all spread out and willing beneath him. He looked at himself and then he looked at her pink slit of a hole.

"Sh-Sheryl thou art certain a-"

"Yes, Ru." She said smiling under him.

He nodded and then, with suddenly shaking fingers he reached down to spread her slightly. He wasn't exactly sure why he was shaking but he did know that he really didn't want to hurt Sheryl. She however seemed rather fearless and confident as she looked up at him expectantly.

First he had thought he'd simply spread her but now he decided that perhaps he should try just two fingers moving in and out and then, after a moment of that, he added a third. After that he thought that was probably enough.

He withdrew his fingers and positioned himself at her entrance holding onto her hips.

"Thou art ready?" He asked with uncertainty.

She nodded.

"Yes." and reached up so that she was holding his shoulders.

Rufus looked down and with one strong thrust he pushed himself in. He looked down and noted that he wasn't entirely in yet and when he looked down at Sheryl she seemed to have realized that too. Her face was calm but there were tears in her eyes and her grip on his shoulders had tightened.

"I'm fine." She mouthed as he continued to try to push past her virginity.

Every time he thrust her tears seemed to well in her eyes more. Now her face was red and her legs were trembling from the pain. She was delirious.

"Um, ah, Ru- I-I-I don't-" She was babbling now and her face was flushed.

She squirmed slightly and when she felt Rufus thrust she thrust with him, the two coming up against each other. And finally she felt that place within herself start to give. She was rather shocked by how excruciating it felt. She sighed and moved her sweat covered head on the pillow. She grunted slightly since the movement seemed to jostle her lower half and cause her more pain.

After re-adjusting herself she brought Rufus down into a kiss all the while working to stretch her legs wider and to relax her muscles more. She really wanted to be able to take all of him into her their first time together. It was very important to her and she was also halfway concerned that perhaps her tightness was hurting him a bit too much.

_Can I be too small_, she wondered, _or Rufus too big?_

They both pulled away from the kiss and stared at each other. Rufus grabbed Sheryl's legs and helped her stretch them, moving them toward her and then apart as he thrust and she pushed into him, arching her back. Finally she felt something in her tear and the rest of him slide snugly into her, the feeling of being filled so completely causing her to scream out in a weird combination of pleasure, pain and pure shock at the feeling. Sheryl had inadvertently closed her eyes, squeezing them shut and she was biting her lip and shaking. She had already started rocking her hips into Rufus's, much to Rufus's surprise and shock. She also realized that she was moaning rather loudly and her chest and face were suffused with a bright shade of scarlet that Rufus marveled at.

She opened her eyes and they both smiled at each other, laughing to themselves. They had done it finally. They were joined. He was stretching and carving her and she was sheathing and squeezing him tightly.

A perfect union, they both thought in unison.

They kissed happily for a while after that, pleased with what they had finally done, until they had reached the end of their ability to hold back.

Rufus braced his hands on either side of Sheryl as he pushed and pulled his way to orgasm, grunting and moaning as he went along.

At first Sheryl had grasped at his arms frantically, deliriously, half out of her mind in her almost-there state. Then she had a better idea, something she had longed to do since she was a girl but had been too shy to. She took both of her hands and grabbed and squeezed the cheeks of his ass causing both of them to come at exactly the same time and for her dear Ru to moan quite wantonly, so much so that it took her by surprise. She herself let out a surprisingly high pitched scream that broke off into a loud moan that then broke off into a sob.

Rufus collapsed on her breast and they laid together, still joined (and clinging to each other due to the small size of her bed) for a long time. Every now and then Rufus would kiss her breasts and she would play with and twirl his hair idly.

The room was so silent that they could hear the crickets from outside croaking. Sheryl blushed and wondered how much the rest of the house might've heard of their love making. She hoped it wasn't much and thought that maybe this was possible, given the fact that when her grandmother had constructed the mansion she had made the walls well insulated on purpose just for such occasions as these.

_Bless my grandmother_, she thought idly, twirling Ru's red hair.

It was so very quiet.

"Sheryl Rainsworth." Rufus said into the silence. "I love thee…I _truly_ love thee."

"Rufus Barma, I love you, too. I always have. Ever since that first time we met I have loved you. I could never belong to anyone else but you."

And she _meant_ those words as she spoke them. She truly did.

That night they made love 3 more times, lying in an orgasmic stupor and squeezing and sucking on each other's various body parts in between their unions, until the sun came up and Rufus shimmied down that trellis once again almost spraining his ankle in the process.

He grabbed his jacket and was gone. Sheryl watched him go.

This ritual continued an unknown number of times and they made up their sleep when they could.

They were really happy.

To the outside world they remained nothing but good friends. But a few months later their families found out.

One night when they'd wondered away at a party and found an empty room and Sheryl had proceeded to tell Rufus that she had always wondered what it would be like to have sex standing up, Rufus's grandfather walked in on them.

The very next day the families got together and _discussed_ things. It was of course frowned upon and no one was very happy with the situation but, while Sheryl's father had reasoned that Rufus had "ruined" his daughter and surely the older young man must have forced himself on his young daughter, Barma's parents argued that, knowing Rainsworth women, Sheryl must have seduced Rufus, using her feminine wiles to sway him from the correct path that a young man should take.

Things were however smoothed out by the older members of each family.

Barma's grandfather reasoned that the Barma and Rainsworth houses had always been in good standing with each other, so was it not natural that they should get along?

While Sheryl's grandmother reasoned that it was not a big deal and that both parties seemed to be in compliance, on a more serious note she reasoned that a Rainsworth woman should not be subjected to any sort of invasive examination on her wedding day, moreover any man who might marry her would hardly be able to complain upon finding she was not a perfect virgin on her wedding night due to the fact that any man marrying a Rainsworth Duchess-to-be was marrying up.

"Besides," Sheryl's grandmother continued. "In the event they should marry it will be of no consequence at all."

Sheryl's grandmother winked at her and Sheryl smiled back.

A marriage was what both Sheryl and Rufus wanted and at the time no one in the family seemed to object to this. But no one could've predicted what would happen next.

A few months later Rufus entered into a contract with a chain that stopped his aging and in a few more years Rufus wouldn't be able to afford being seen in public as Rufus Barma.

It was decided then that Rufus was no longer a suitable husband for what would be a highly visible Rainsworth Duchess and a marriage was arranged between Sheryl and an Earl whose family was well liked by the Rainsworths.

Sheryl was told that she and Rufus had to stop seeing each other. Her grandmother told her it would be easier this way.

Sheryl really doubted it.

Sheryl was furious and resentful but knew that she had her duties to fulfill as a Rainsworth woman and that she couldn't just shirk her duties because she was in love.

When she was 18 she bit her tongue and on a lovely day in June got married to the Earl whom she held not one drop of affection for.

She learned to not feel as much and she learned to keep her legs open and her eyes on the ceiling as he screwed her.

Sometimes she thought of Rufus.

Rufus on the other hand tried to do something about things. He begged Sheryl to run away with him. Once she was married he begged Sheryl to get a divorce. Sheryl continued to reject him and ignore him and the harder he tried the more harsh and cold her rejections got.

She told him that she had never loved him, that that was just a lie she'd told him, that they had been nothing together. That he was just a folly of her youth, something that amused her for a while but no longer. She urged him to think of it the same way.

With the power of his chain he showed her the memories of them that he cherished and then the happy future that they could have had and though she was on the brink of tears, he could see them, she said it was nothing but his delusions and that he shouldn't go around making illusions of people without their permission. She went on to say that he better never let her catch him making illusions of her again.

"So I can do it out of thou sight?" He asked teasingly.

"You'd probably make me do something perverted you freak."

For one moment there was a fire in her eyes and he loved it. He grinned.

"Thee didst not answer my question." He said.

She threw a tea cup at his head. He dodged. He'd take what he could get.

She burned his love letters, ignored him when he addressed her. She reiterated that she did not love him and never had. She had just used him as a diversion. It was just sex. She said there was nothing special about their so-called "love". She had been a fool and he was too if he thought there was ever anything real between them.

She went onto say that she was no longer attracted to him and that he was far too short.

She tried to say all of these things with such confidence and conviction but Rufus wanted to laugh in derision at her attempts.

Did she honestly think she could fool him?

He knew her better than anyone. He could see right through her lies. It was a joke. It disgusted him that she thought she could pretend with him just as it disgusted him that she would even consider being with that joke of an Earl. He could've vomited from his disgust.

The night that Sheryl got married he pulled out some intoxicants from _that_ country and got completely drunk.

He moped around in a stupor in his family's mansion for weeks.

He got to the point where he didn't feel much of anything anymore either.

On occasion he would see her at social functions; parties and he'd glare at the stupid Earl. He could hardly see a thing of worth in him.

And Sheryl, he_ knew_ that Sheryl was not happy.

He also did not think that the Earl was that much taller than him and besides he hardly understood why height mattered. He thought that Sheryl seemed happy enough with him and his height when they'd been together.

Would she have him believe _that_ was a lie, too?

What a clever little actress she was, not that he believed her.

A couple years passed by and in that time he learned to hate Sheryl.

When they looked at each other at parties, and yes, now she looked, he scrapped over her with passionless eyes.

What?

Did she think he'd be left pining away for her?

Hardly. He no longer cared.

If she could look at their relationship with such loathing and yet indifference, well, he could do the same.

He hoped that she enjoyed the bed she'd made for herself. She could lie in it, along with her man whorish little Earl, soon-to-be-Duke. What a joke.

In just under a year he would go into hiding due to his un-aging state and when he came back she'd be a withered old woman. She could see how she liked that.

The _Earl_ would be withered too, but him? Fresh as a daisy.

Maybe height wouldn't be such an issue then. Maybe she'd love him then.

Apart of him deep, deep inside thought that he could wait.

In the meantime for all his thoughts of derision and looks of hatred he never did date, or sleep with or have any relationships other than that one with her.

Rumors swirled around him.

That he was eccentric. That he was gay and preferred the company of other men.

Rufus didn't care.

He let the rumors exist and did nothing to discourage them.

He hoped that Sheryl heard and he hoped that it bothered her.

Then one day the house of Barma got a call from the house of Rainsworth and after one hell of an explanation from his family and a night spent pacing in his room, he got up the next morning, bathed, put on his formal suit and pulled his long red hair back with a white tie.

Apparently after 3 years of marriage, and all the little joys that came with marriage, the Earl still hadn't been able to do his husbandly duty and impregnate his wife. It seemed the Earl was the problem (and Rufus of course had no doubts about this fact. He was sure that his lovely Sheryl was fine).

The Rainsworths were now asking the Barma household for their aide in the matter.

His grandfather told him to go and so he went.

It wasn't because he cared to see Sheryl, he told himself, and it wasn't in order to see Sheryl beg on her hands and knees for him to impregnate her and do what Duke-to-be Rainsworth could not.

He told himself it was a matter of duty and nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Pandora Hearts nor do I have any rights to it.

Note: This is the last chapter. I hope that you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!

Sheryl was mortified and Sheryl was excited and it disturbed her a little to be just so sexually excited not just in the presence of Rufus but also her mother, father, grandmother and a butler serving tea.

Her husband was absent. She hardly cared. She wouldn't miss him.

Sheryl was sitting in the large parlor having tea with her family and Rufus as they discussed the details, rules and conditions of attempting to impregnate her.

She had no idea why Ru was agreeing to this after she'd treated him so terribly or why he was being so agreeable and had such a grand twinkle in his eyes, or why he'd taken and put so much care into his appearance, but she didn't care. She just knew that she wanted her family gone and Rufus naked and before her. She would've felt ashamed of her thoughts if she weren't so overcome with desire.

She heard the proposal being presented to Rufus.

He was being told that he'd be sworn to secrecy, that he could never publicly or otherwise acknowledge the child resulting from any successful union between the two of them. He was being told that should she conceive he might be called to impregnate her again to produce another heir. He was being told that he would of course be compensated for his efforts.

He said that wouldn't be necessary.

She took a small sip of her tea and set the cup in its saucer.

He had glanced over at her secretly a total of 6 times but she would be damned if he caught her looking at him, for him to see the lust that was there in her eyes. She didn't want him to see it, at least not yet.

And just why was he looking so smug anyway?

Rufus agreed to the conditions and Sheryl's heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

How many nights (and mornings and mid-afternoons) had she spent longing for Rufus, thinking of Rufus, imagining that the hands touching her weren't her own or her husbands but were his?

She'd lost count of the times and she wondered if he'd thought about how she suffered, about how she sacrificed, about the reasons behind the way that she acted.

Did he realize it was out of a sense of duty or was he too selfish to see past himself?

She thought that he was probably too selfish to see past himself.

Did he know how she suffered, what torture it was to turn him away and lie to him? Did he get it at all?

She doubted it.

It'd all been because her duties as a Rainsworth. She couldn't marry a man who wouldn't be aging; after all you couldn't just explain something like that away.

And now to be in this humiliating position asking for his services in hopes that she might conceive and fulfill one duty that every noble Lady faced: producing heirs.

It was terrible and humiliating and yet she was _so _excited and she felt far too hot and sweaty for clothes and much to wet between her legs. She'd never felt a desire so deep. It even canceled out their first time together.

But within her excitement there was a fear: What if her husband wasn't the problem, what if it was her and if Rufus failed to get her with child she'd have to bare that deep down shame and the humiliation of Rufus knowing this about her.

The thought of being incapable of producing children, of being barren, incapable of carrying out her womanly duty to bring about little Rainsworths or Barmas depending on how you looked at it, was almost too much for her to handle as she heard the details of the agreement being discussed.

When they would have sex, how long they would engage in sexual activities before they accepted that perhaps she was incapable of producing heirs.

It was humiliating and yet Rufus was surprisingly chipper.

Again she took a sip of her tea and again she laid her cup in her saucer. Her face was burning and she wasn't exactly sure if it was from embarrassment or desire.

It had just been agreed upon that Rufus and her would have access to each other for 3 months before it was accepted that she was barren. They would be permitted to have sex whenever they so decided as long as it was on a Rainsworth property or a Barma property but never elsewhere.

Sheryl just looked down. No one was ever going to let go of that one time at the party, were they?

She looked up and accidentally made eye contact with Rufus who just smirked at her.

She looked away.

What the hell was he so pleased about? But she thought rather smugly that she'd caught a blush on his face, too, though her fantasies at this point were running rampant.

She imagined him taking her on the couch, on the floor, in that chair, on the small table that she sat near, standing up, near that window over there, pressed up against the mirror over there. The possibilities seemed endless.

While she was thinking on these things a decision was reached, the agreement ironed out and she heard her grandmother make a comment that perhaps they should leave the two younger individuals alone.

They filtered out.

The door clicked shut.

Rufus walked over and took the seat beside the other side of the table that her mother had been occupying before. He poured himself some tea and they sat in the silence, occasionally staring at each other. Neither one said a word to the other one.

Sheryl looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she took a sip of tea.

He really hadn't aged at all. He looked so handsome that it hurt to be sitting there just sipping tea. He was 22 but hadn't changed one bit since 4 ½ years prior when he made the contract with his chain. She was now 21 years old, while he possessed the body of a 17 year old. She wondered, did he think her old. If she'd known his thoughts she wouldn't have needed to be so concerned. But as it was she was ready to claw the walls. She was about to take another impotent sip from her tea cup when she all of a sudden slammed the saucer and tea cup down on the table with a very loud "chink".

Rufus looked up, clearly not expecting this outburst from her and she got up from her seat and took his arm and pulled him up and then dragged him through the room, through the door and down two long corridors, one with windows and one without. She stopped at a door and then opened it. She dragged him inside and then turned around and closed the door. She stood back and observed him for a moment as he walked into the room.

He should've known after all. It was a room he knew well.

His back was turned to her.

"Well, I should've known." Rufus said coldly, like he could hide his true feelings from her.

Was he really going to play that old game again?

"Feeling sentimental are we Sheryl?"

It was her old room, exactly the same as it had been a few years ago except that it was now painted butter cup yellow.

Rufus tried not to smile however when he saw the same old flowered and lavender color duvet. They'd had a lot of good times on that thing, both over it, underneath it and beside it. He could still see the faded stain of Sheryl's virgin blood upon it, somewhat masked by additional embroidery.

"Ah, to see the proud Duchess-to-be Rainsworth begging a Barma for his seed, why I'd never." He sighed.

This was ridiculous. Why did it hurt this much?

He thought that his cold demeanor was the best way to proceed however, after all if he let his true feelings show he'd be right back to begging her to run away with him and the witch would reject him all over again. Couldn't have that.

"So, how doth we proceed?" he said, hands clapping together in his frustration. "I assume its Lady on her back, legs and bottom half elevated after the fact, if I remember right." He mumbled. "I'm sure you've gotten used to that position with the _Earl_." He said in disgust. "Will he be coming in to watch or assist?" He shrugged. "I don't know, take my contributions, insert them into thee…"

There was nothing but silence.

"Truly Sheryl," He said letting his frustration show. "I will not know how to proceed if thee doth not tell me how to. How clinical will this ordeal be? Will thou feet hang in stirrups of some sort? May I touch thee in pleasure or is this simply a business affair? Is my aim supposed to be making thee come first and then contributing my seed or would any orgasm on thy behalf be considered being unfaithful to your nice tall Earl?"

Again he was met with silence.

"Tis difficult to read thy mind Sheryl."

More silence.

He sighed but it was softer this time.

"Sheryl, if thou art concerned that thou art the problem in the fertility equation I am sure that thou most diffidently are n-"

He turned around and there she was, on tip toe, kissing him, her mouth enveloping his, forcing his lips apart with her tongue and then dominating his mouth until their tongues were wrapped together, her palms were pressed to his cheeks but her hands soon left his face to grab rather heartily at his ass. She squeezed delighting in his tight little ass.

He moaned into the kiss, very much caught off guard.

She released him and pulled back, her face slightly flushed and her lips slightly swollen.

"I thought thee found me an unsuitable mate." He said blankly.

She looked at him, exasperated.

She took a step closer so that her breasts were pressed to his chest and she reached both her hands around to cup and squeeze and then pinch his buttocks sharply watching his face the entire time. There was a flush to his cheeks and she felt him rising and hardening between them.

She leaned up to his ear, letting her breath and tongue dance across his skin.

"Ru," she whispered. "You talk too much."

And once again she kissed him, their tongues fighting a battle that neither one could win, so she pulled away, Rufus's hands were now holding her face like it was something fragile and delicate and precious, something liable to break.

"Ru, how fast do you think you can undress me?"

He smiled.

"Faster than the Earl, I assure thee."

Her smile widened.

"Good, do it."

He withdrew his hands from her face and stood back taking in the sight of her.

Her hair was swept up into her usual bun with yellow ruffled ribbon hanging gracefully from her hair. She was in a dress of the same shade of yellow as the ribbons with a high cream colored neckline that was ruffled near the neck, tied there with a baby blue ribbon that was in an enthusiastic little bow. The dress was long sleeved and though very formfitting at the top it was very billowy at the bottom.

It had been a long time since Rufus had undressed Sheryl from one of her complicated ensembles.

He knew that underneath that dress there were probably at least 3 petticoats, perhaps a bustle, a chemise and of course, a corset.

He smiled.

It was going to be fun undressing her.

She who stood before him looking like a lovely little bundle of sunshine, her eyes squinting slightly from the light blazing in from the windows.

He took a step toward her and carefully undid the bow at her neck. He pushed back the fabric and kissed her gently, savoring the sweet smell of her skin. Oh how he'd missed her, and then took her by the shoulders and spun her around, rather sharply. Sheryl gasped.

His hands began unbuttoning the silky nobs one after another and Sheryl felt the fabric loosen.

"Dost thou love him?" He asked softly.

She was surprised by the question.

"No." she finally answered. "Not once."

He stopped unbuttoning at a place near her lower back. He nodded once.

"I thought not." He said solemnly as he resumed his task.

She knew that he'd reached the last button and she felt him kiss the back of her exposed neck. She shuddered involuntarily. She felt him smile on her skin.

"Whatever is the matter Sheryl?" He asked smugly.

"You haven't finished undressing me." She said rather sternly.

"Ah, so I have not." He pulled her arms from their sleeves and then gathered up the dress and lifted it over her head. "How art thou family?" He asked her solemnly.

_Now to undo the bustle_, he thought to himself.

"My family's fine. My mother and father are happy. My grandmother is in good health. All is well."

"And how art the Earl?" He asked leisurely as he did away with the bustle and reached around to the front of her to untie the various petticoats.

"He's fine." She said sharply.

"And thou art..?" He trailed off pretending to fumble a little with the petticoats, after all he knew Sheryl well and she was dying from the anticipation of it.

He had had to wait so he had no problem making her wait a little as well.

She sighed with annoyance.

"I am waiting for you to hurry up and undress me, Ru!" She shoved aside his hand and undid the petticoats herself shoving them to the side with her feet, kicking off her shoes, before turning around to strip Rufus of his coat and then his tie and shirt, throwing them to the floor with a bit of anger.

Then she knelt and began on his pants when she realized something and looked up to find Rufus staring at her.

"You were pretending to fumble." She accused.

Rufus shrugged.

"Perhaps." He said.

She looked down and then up again.

"Why?" She asked.

He shrugged.

"You kept me waiting. You're normally much faster than that." She said in indignation.

"What dost thee think thee hast done to me, Sheryl?" He paused but there was no response. "Thou hast done nothing but make me wait and long for thee with no respite in between for 4 ½ long years. Dost thou not realize that I have _known_ waiting Sheryl? For all these years I hath known waiting, for thee to realize the mistake thou hast made, for thee to look at me just once with something other than contempt in thine eyes. I have suffered for thee Sheryl, miserably. Thou dost not know waiting. Do not speak to me of such things. If I had my way thou wouldst beg on thy knees for my forgiveness. I've loved thee Sheryl for all the good it hast done me."

Sheryl just looked at him and then she looked down at her hands which now rested in her lap. She had fallen against the backs of her legs and for Rufus this conjured up an image of a past Sheryl in this same room during a very different time when things had seemed simpler.

Where had it all gone wrong?

And he had wanted to be mad at her, but it all just seemed to leave in that moment.

"Ru, I'm sorry." She said sim

simply and it actually surprised him.

He hadn't been expecting an apology.

"I've treated you badly and I've hurt you and I've hurt myself and I don't blame you if you now hate me. I've been foolish. I've taken both of our lives and muddied them and darkened them with steps that I've taken and decisions that can't be overturned."

And to his amazement there were tears glistening in her down cast eyes.

"I've been such an idiot and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't constantly go back and replay the happy times that we've spent together and the simplicity and clarity of when we were younger and wish…just wish that we could go back and do it again, that I could go back and make better decisions and you could go back and not form the contract with that damn chain." She laughed. "I have so many regrets and wishes that can't be achieved that I feel like I'm drowning in them. It seems to me that our entire lives have been dictated by something that happened before our times…" She shook her head. "If only that damn tragedy had never happened." She said under her breath, head tilted down, tear drops falling on her hands. "Then we wouldn't be in this position, our families wouldn't have had to carry this burden, you never would've formed a contract with-"

And then suddenly she took a breath and shook her head and wiped her eyes furiously.

"No. It's stupid to think that. Nothing can be done about the past, but-" And now she was looking up at him. "Please know that everything that I've done has been in the name of my family and my sense of duty to that family, the Rainsworth house. I believe you of all people are capable of understanding that, my reasoning and my sense of devotion to my family. I think if you'd been put in my position you'd do the same." She was crying again.

Rufus just looked at her. He nodded.

"I would." He said softly.

"But I'm sorry for hurting you, Ru. I never meant to hurt you. I've loved you since we were children. I wanted a life with you." She looked down at the ground, her head shaking. "Above all else. But I can't shirk my responsibilities." She gulped in air. "And I'm asking you to do this with me, to _impregnate_ me." She said almost with a look of confusion. "And I'm sorry and I know full well that it is selfish and unbelievably cruel of me to ask this of you. I mean after this regardless of what happens or how I feel, we still won't be able to be together. And it kills me, but I do hope in my most sincerest of hears that we can be friends of sorts, that we can smile at each other from across a room, or that you can think of me with just a little kindness and warmth in your heart. I don't want you to hate me."

She said, and she was sobbing and it took everything in him not to bend down and kiss her and comfort her and say that they had both been fools, that they were both at fault and hell, maybe it was just him, he didn't know, but he also wanted to hear what she had to say, so he waited.

"I _never_ wanted you to hate me and I certainly never hated you. I love you, Ru. These years, being without you have been the hardest. I've been so lonely and bored without you in my life. And I'm scared of failing…at everything, at being a Rainsworth, a Duchess, one of the four great Dukedoms, at my responsibilities. If I don't produce a child I'll be failing at the one thing I've thrown away everything else for, including you. I can't fail. And I'm asking you to do this for me because, in truth, you're the only person I want to father my children. You're the only person I'd want to do this to me. I want to do this with you. And I don't want to with him. I think that's why I've been unable to conceive. I don't want to with him. I don't _want_ him. I want you, Ru."

He just looked at her.

"And I'm sorry for everything but it's the truth. I want you. I love you. I want you to father my children and no other man. And if I'm being honest with myself I want that body of yours and I want that handsome face and I want your voice to be sobbing my name when you come. I also want that gorgeous little ass of yours."

He blushed.

She looked up at him.

"The_ Earl_ cannot satisfy my desire for you. He's not as attractive as you are, or as witty and inventive, he lacks your charm and cunning. He's not one _eighth_ as knowledgeable as you are. He lacks in so many areas…and he is disappointingly small. And I am begging you." She scooted back and put her forehead to the floor, kneeling before him. "I am begging you Ru, to forgive me. And I am begging you for your seed and I am begging you to bed me so hard that I forget all the years of missing you and wanting you and not having you. I am begging you to not hate me and to be the one person who actually matters to me again. I am begging you, Ru. I'm so lost without you."

And she sounded broken and lost and dejected.

And that was one thing Rufus Barma couldn't stand for.

He bent down and took Sheryl by the shoulders and stood her up. He looked her in the eyes.

"I love thee, Sheryl. I am incapable of hating thee. My heart belongs to thee. I will forever belong to thee and thee alone. Thou dost not have to beg me for a thing Sheryl. I will always be beside thee, even when I can't physically. There's never been any other. There is only thee and thee alone. We shall make it work somehow." He smiled. "Besides I would be happy to hath fathered a Rainsworth Duchess to be."

She smiled through her tears and laughed.

He took her in his arms and stood there holding her. He'd heard everything that he needed to hear. He still had his best friend and they both still loved each other, so not all was lost. There was still hope and as long as there was hope…

After a while Sheryl stopped crying and he kissed her hair and leaned down to her ear and whispered.

"And for whatever tis worth, I have spent 4 long years contemplating this body," He said as his hand slid down her waist to her hips. ", whilst pleasuring myself with_ this_ hand. I…" He kissed her neck. ", hath missed this body terribly."

She smiled and Rufus proceeded to turn her around and undo her corset a great deal faster than he had done the petticoats. After a bit of fiddling with the laces, the laces came undone, and with one swift powerful tug her corset dropped. Rufus reached his hand up and groped and squeezed at her breasts, rubbing her nipples through the fabric of her chemise until to her great surprise she came, the first time she had come with just nipple stimulation since the last time her and Rufus had been together.

She tried to bite back moans as Rufus simply smiled.

She turned around and simply lifted her arms up above her head as Rufus took off her chemise and then threw it to the floor.

"Lady Rainsworth, thou doth still lack panties." He said teasingly, taking in her form.

"Well I did know you were coming today. I figured they'd just get in the way."

He grinned.

He kissed both her breasts and then kissed her. She pulled away smiling and went to unbutton his trousers, she herself completely nude save for the white stockings she was wearing, pulling his trousers off of him as he shoved off his shoes and socks. He was now completely naked and he grabbed Sheryl up by the arms and pulled her into a kiss.

He picked her up and she wrapped her legs tightly around him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and with one hand supporting her bottom he reached up and freed her hair from its bun, pulling the ribbons from it and letting them fall to the ground.

She shook her hair free.

He got a better grip on her and carried her to the bed.

He laid her down so that she was lying in the middle and across it. She smiled at him and he smiled at her as he once again kissed her breasts. Then he slowly unrolled the stockings from her legs and feet, taking his time at the thigh.

After the last of the clothes were peeled away they commenced to the main attraction.

They both were rather quick to release, neither one taking enough time to get properly situated on the bed. The light streaming in, the fact that they were doing all of this in broad daylight lending things a certain vivid sharp clarity that only seemed to enhance the sensation and feeling of it.

Sheryl came for her second time upside down hanging off the bed while Rufus sucked on her breasts rather enthusiastically. Sheryl came once more before Rufus finally exploded within her, the shock and pressure of him taking her aback. She really had become far too used to the Earl's rather sparse trickling contributions that she'd forgotten what it felt like to feel the full force of a man.

She closed her eyes.

Why couldn't it be like this forever?

They had sex at least 4 more times that day and 2 more that night, the rest of the house for the most part leaving them to their own devices. They ate their supper in her old bedroom like it was room service and they were in a hotel and talked for hours about everything that they couldn't for the past few years, everything from their perspective families, royal and political gossip, events at Pandora, servants and what books they'd been reading.

"Art thou still reading those horrendous rubbish rags?" He asked her as he forked some steak into his mouth.

"Yes." Sheryl said nibbling at a streamed carrot.

She knew to what he was referring. "Rubbish Rags" were what he called her romance novels.

"Are you still deeply enveloped in your old texts?"

"Naturally." He said as he popped another piece of steak in his mouth, eyes down cast with his peculiar smugness.

She smiled.

Later that night when Rufus had finished performing oral sex on her, his hair brushing against her thigh as she sat propped up against a few soft pillows, her legs spread and her breathing still a little shaky he asked her if the _Earl_ had ever done such things to her. She had blushed and said that he had not.

They spent all three of the predetermined months like this and Sheryl and Rufus only occasionally bothered to get dressed.

There had been a few times when Sheryl had run into her husband in the hallway during one of the few times when she was up and presentable.

It had been awkward but she'd gotten through it and thought that he was hardly in a position to blame her, after all theirs was not a marriage based on love, but an attempt for his family to move up in the world. Sheryl had no illusions about that. And in addition to that he had failed to do his husbandly duty and impregnate her; therefore she refused to feel guilty.

She thought that her Ru, however, was quite shameless.

He had run into the Earl countless times in the hallway and yet had proceeded, rather cheerfully, to talk at length of the weather and a few other meaningless subjects.

Then he went to the Rainsworth library in search of good reads in what he saw as "a mass of insubstantial and inadequate literature".

He sent someone to his family home to bring him some suitable reading material from what he thought was their much more superior home library. Sheryl had just rolled her eyes.

During their 3 months Sheryl spent a few weeks at Rufus's estate where he pulled out all the stops to make her feel at home.

Every night was a feast. He had all of her favorite teas and every room in the house had her favorite flowers in them. He even provided her with her "Rubbish Rags", for when she had idle time, for which she was eternally grateful.

He filled the pool for her and let her use it and Sheryl came up with a fun little game that she liked to call "How-many-weird-places-can-we-have-sex-on-your-est ate".

They did it in every room in the house and a few places outside of it, though they hardly needed to for reproductive purposes.

Sheryl had conceived within the first month with Rufus and she told him immediately but opted not to tell anyone else so that they could enjoy their remaining time together.

But soon that too came to an end.

She told her grandmother privately about her little fib and her grandmother made a note of it and said that she understood.

Sheryl went back to her somewhat dull life with the Earl and had to settle for covert smiles and acknowledgements by way of a head nod with Rufus, as Sheryl continued to carry and grow great with their child.

It was sad and it hurt to go back to that sort of distance and indifferent public attitude toward Rufus, but at least it hurt a lot less than before when she was feigning hate and he had slowly grown to return the feeling. At least now they had a quiet acknowledgment of each other. They could smile and know the others true feelings. That was something. Their love may have been concealed and private, a secret that the two of them harbored but in some ways Sheryl thought that made it all the more special and genuine. It was between the two of them, just the two of them. It was something they both held dearly and could be acknowledged in a glance or miles away from that person, sitting in a windowsill, or even an empty library or a room full of people. That distance almost made it more rich and intense, so much so that just the thought of it could bring you to tears or make you laugh and smile uncontrollably from the happiness of it.

Sheryl thought that the hardest aspect of it had to be the physical aspect of it. To not be able to lean over and kiss or touch the person that you loved, to see with your own eyes that they were okay, not being able to do that, that was torture.

And there were other issues too, desires that went unsatisfied except for mental images and imagination, closed eyes and a hand in the dark.

At one point though, when they were at a party and she was in the last few months of pregnancy she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a dark corner. She placed his hand on her stomach and watched his face, which looked a little confused, brighten at the realization that his baby was kicking at him. He smiled and she smiled and without a word they parted ways.

Rufus had a hard time with things but he loved and respected her and he understood her reasoning.

She was right.

If he were put in a similar situation as she had been 4 years ago, he would've made the same decisions. But he understood now and that made a world of a difference from a few months ago, before all of this.

Now they had an _understanding_.

That helped ease the pain.

But he did send the baby gifts.

He just couldn't help himself, some toys, a few rattles one more decorative than practical, a small rose gold baby ring with two of the baby's birthstones embedded in it and some educational toys like blocks with letters of the alphabet, an abacus with brightly colored beads and a book of children's stories from _that_ country that his ancestors hailed from. It was inscribed:

To Lady Sheryl Rainsworth:

If the baby is a girl thou will no doubt be filling its head with stories from the "Rubbish Rags" for I know how you Rainsworth women are (I doth not possess the faintest idea of what happen if the child be a boy. I don't even want to ponder it). This is so that child thee doth carry will have something fitting to read.

Yours,

Rufus Barma

Every now and then he would send a letter from the Barma family asking after Sheryl's and the baby's health. He wasn't fooling anyone though. Regardless Sheryl's grandmother would always reply with a short but polite answer.

Finally there came a time when Sheryl was no longer present at social functions and the Earl came to these things alone.

Again Rufus got in the habit of asking the Earl about Sheryl's and the baby's health. He said the baby and Sheryl were fine.

Rufus didn't understand the Earl. He thought surely that the man must hate him and yet the man seemed surprisingly tolerant. Rufus didn't understand it.

_If I were him_, Rufus thought_, I would kill the man who had bedded Sheryl. I would not possess the indifference about her required to share. _

_But then again_, he thought, _this man is not me._

9 months out from their reunion Shelly Rainsworth was born.

She was small and robust with a head full of rosy hair just like her mother's and came just around sunset in a surprisingly short labor.

Sheryl's grandmother decided that it would be best to send a carriage to fetch Rufus.

Rufus entered the room that was now very dark and very quiet.

An oil lamp on the bed stand provided some light.

"Sheryl." Came Rufus's reply.

He was hesitant for some reason, after all the baby or Sheryl both might be sleeping. He didn't want to disturb them but he was also ecstatic.

He was now a father, though he knew he wouldn't be playing a big part in the baby's life, still though he was happy. He was going to get to see both the baby and Sheryl, a privilege that he did not think that he would get except a passing glance at the baptism ceremony. But now he was here and he knew, in that quiet dark corner, there was the two of them.

"Ru." Sheryl's cheerful voice jumped out at him from the dark. "Close the door." She practically squealed.

At once he obeyed and closed it.

"Come over here, Ru." She said in an excited, anxious voice, the one she used get when she was little and could barely contain her excitement.

He heard the small little complaints of the baby.

_My baby_, he thought.

"Sh-shhh." Came Sheryl's cheerful, peaceful, surprisingly easy voice. "It's okay. It's okay. It's just daddy. Daddy's coming to see you, your real daddy."

Rufus approached the bed and saw Sheryl's pretty little face peering out. Her eyes squinted in her happiness. She looked freshly scrubbed and healthy, which relieved him.

He was worried that she wouldn't be well. He'd been told by the man who came to pick him up that mother and baby were well but still, seeing was believing. He looked at the rosy little head of hair that was nestled near her breast suckling, its mouth busy at the task of getting nourishment.

"Perhaps I should return at a later time…"

"No, Ru." Sheryl said firmly. "Unless it bothers you."

"No." Rufus said, peering at the baby whose little pink face was very much involved with the task of eating.

It's little lids were closed. It looked very serious and earnest.

"Good." Sheryl said firmly, her head turning to gaze fondly at her child's. "I should think you've seen them enough."

He smiled.

It was true.

"Is the baby…" In his haste he'd forgotten to ask the man who'd come for him about the sex of the baby.

"It's a girl." She said proudly, looking down and smiling at the baby.

All of Sheryl's long hair had been pushed to the side of one shoulder. The sheets around her were so creamy, as was her nightgown which of course was buttoned down exposing both breasts.

"So we hath a little Lady Rainsworth?" He asked happily.

"Yes, we do." She looked down and smiled at the baby. "Don't we?" She cooed.

She seemed happy.

Rufus was glad.

He'd helped give her something that made her happy. That made him happy. He just wished that he could be around the both of them.

"Did it hurt?" He asked meekly.

She smiled at him.

"Noooo." She said, laughing lightly. "I really was expecting something horrid given all the horror stories I've been told lately. But really it was nothing. This little one came with such ease. I didn't cry or scream."

Rufus smiled.

"I wouldn't expect anything else from thee, Sheryl."

"I really don't understand what all the fuss was about." She said.

Then she looked down at the baby and beamed motioning for Rufus to come near.

"Look, she's got her eyes open. Come over here, Ru."

He did and for the first time got a really good look at her.

"She doth look like a Rainsworth." He said. "The spitting image of her beautiful mother." He sighed.

Why couldn't things stay like this?

"She looketh just like thee Sheryl, unimaginably lovely."

Sheryl smiled.

"I think she has Barma eyes though."

Rufus looked and thought that he saw them.

"What hath thee named the child?' He asked in a whisper.

"Shelly." She replied.

He smiled. He liked the name.

"Shelly Rainsworth." He repeated. "Suitors will all vie for thee hand." He cooed to the baby who was staring up at him, wide eyed. "And I shall have them shot." He said warmly. "Because thou art such a lovely beauty that no one will deserve thee. Not even the king himself, nor the most kind god and most diffidently not an Earl." He said bitterly, smiling at Sheryl, hoping to god it was too dark for his tears to show.

The little infant reached out a hand for him and he put out his finger which the baby took in her hand and attempted to wave around, her eyes darting from mother to father and back again.

"Tis true." He said. "Thou art incomparably lovely." He knew that his voice was husky.

He also knew that Sheryl was staring a hole through him. He didn't meet her eyes. He patted the baby's hair and then touched her cute little nose, her eyes closing and then opening, barely making a sound. He stroked her cheek softly before drawing his hand away.

"She's lovely, Sheryl." He said solemnly, still not deigning to look her in the eye.

"When are you going into hiding?" She asked.

His tone hardened.

"A week from today."

She looked away and nodded.

"How long will you be gone?" She asked.

"40 years." He responded passionlessly. "It could be sooner, but I don't know.

She didn't say a word and the baby's soft cries began to permeate the room.

They had both known it would be coming since the day that they learned his body would no longer be aging. The day would come when Rufus Barma would simply disappear until the day when it would be deemed acceptable for him to come back.

They'd talked about it during their three months together. He'd explained his plans to maintain a false Rufus Barma when the time came for him to take over the Dukedom. He would return during this time and remain on the outskirts of things, nearby but forgettable. But there would be a large chunk of time when he'd be gone, just very simply gone. It was not going to be easy, especially not now.

He stayed until dawn. He and Sheryl talked. He held the baby and Sheryl slept for a while. He watched the both of them sleeping.

6 days later a carriage was sent to his house.

Sheryl wanted to see him.

He came and was told that she would be in the rose garden. There she stood in a rosy purple dress, her hair done up in ribbons looking exceedingly happy.

She ran up to hug him putting all her strength behind it and then she pulled back.

"Will you please walk with me Ru?" She said holding out her hand. "There are some things I'd like to discuss with you."

They walked for a long time until they were deep into the garden and then she stopped and turned around.

She looked happy and breathless and like she might cry but she was going to put up a fight at the very least. She wanted to keep it together. She was not going to cry. She dropped his hand.

"The baby is with my mother." She said by way of explanation.

He nodded.

_Our baby_, he thought.

"I know that you're going away." She said in a rush. "But you'll come back." She reassured them both. "And when you do I'll be there and we'll have our work to do." She said matter-of-factly. "I don't want our daughter to grow up in this world as we did. I don't want her to be forced to make decisions that will lead to her unhappiness. And let's face it the way things are now, the reports Pandora keeps sending about the Abyss, the state it's in, how it's only going to get worse…" She shook her head vehemently. "Things might've ended up really different for us, if the Tragedy of Sablier had never happened, if there was no Four Great Dukedoms, no chains to be contracted with…" She looked at him but then in a flurry of skirts she turned away, piddling with a rose that she'd spotted. "Things could get a lot worse in our daughters future. I don't want that. And you don't want that. I want our daughter to be happy and to never be forced to make decisions that end in everyone's unhappiness. So let's do something together Ru, something for our daughter, something that we can share."

She turned around and looked at him, her gaze even and her threatening tears now pushed to the side with an amazing strength.

"I want the Barma and Rainsworth families to join together, to make sure that another Tragedy of Sablier never happens again. I want you and me to work together towards that end, to do whatever possible to prevent it and to prevent the Baskervilles and Glen from taking power ever again. Will you do this with me, Ru?"

Rufus stared at her hand, her face, the sunlight and greenery all around them.

Rufus took a breath.

-M. Palovna


End file.
